17-Food laws 4p - The Formation of USDA The government and...

1 The government and food±laws, regulations & biotechnology²FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS helping to build a world without hunger The Formation of USDA The United Stateshad a largely agrarianeconomy early in its history. In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln founded the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Lincoln called it the "people's department". President Lincoln appointed a chemist to lead the Bureau of Chemistry, the true predecessor of the Food and Drug Administration. Agriculture CollegesMorrill Land-Grant Colleges Act•The purpose of the land-grant colleges was to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life.•Morrill Act was signed into law by President Abraham Lincolnon July 2, 1862.•106 Land-Grant institutionsFirst Transcontinental Railroadlinking the railwaynetwork of the Eastern United Stateswith Californiaon the Paci±ccoast. Ceremonially completed 1869at Promontory Summit, Utah, it created a nation-wide mechanized transportation network that revolutionized the population and economy of the American West.

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2 The Growing Meat Packing Industry • The expanding railroads provided where they were slaughtered. • In the 1870s, refrigerator cars were introduced and later the development of electricity allowed meat processing to become a year-round business. • Before this time, beef was not common in the America diet. food laws became necessary as vast numbers of rural residents moved to large cities and could no longer grow their own food or have direct contact with the farmers who were raising crops and livestock. As the population became more urbanized, processed foods came to substitute for fresh produce in the U.S. diet. "The use of processed food then was even greater than it is today," Toward the end of the 19th century One of our first A food law that was eventually introduced in Congress in 1881 was based on an 1875 British food law. But the law was weak and had little effect on the regulation on food products. Human Testing 'Poison Squads' Tested Chemical Preservatives In 1902, as Harvey W. Wiley, chief chemist at the Bureau of Chemistry, was trying to build support for a national food and drug law, he initiated what came to be called the "Poison Squad" studies. At the time, many questions were being raised about the safety and suitability of the chemicals used to preserve foods. Wiley decided that the easiest way to answer those questions would be to feed the substances, one at a time, to healthy volunteers along with their meals in what he termed "hygienic table trials."

3 'Poison Squads' The men agreed to eat nothing except what was provided to them. In the dining room at the Bureau of Chemistry, they ate large doses of a preservative, along with nutritious meals.

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